Belize

     Belize is a small developing central American-Caribbean country about the size of the US state of New Hampshire, with a population of almost a quarter million. It lies at the Northeast end of the Caribbean just South of the Yucatan and just east of Guatemala. Ethnically it is a mixture of African, Caribbean, European, Middle Eastern, North American, Mexican, Central American, and indigenous Mayan peoples. The predominant language is English, an inheritance from its colonial days as British Honduras, but Spanish is becoming increasingly the language of the Northern and Western parts of the country where Central American immigration has been the heaviest.

     It s largest city is Belize City, the former capital, located on the coast. The "new" capital, Belmopan, is located about 50 miles inland, presumably safe from the hurricanes which occasionally visit the area. Other major population centers include Corozal on the Mexican Border, Orange Walk which lies on the Northern highway between Corozal and Belize City, San Ignacio/Santa Elena in the West, Dangriga on the coast, and Punta Gorda in the far South.

     The principal sources of foreign exchange are tourism, citrus, and sugar. The second longest barrier reef in the world, the lush tropical rain forests which still cover almost three quarters of the land surface, the many Maya ruins, the balmy sub tropical climate, and extraordinarily friendly people attract hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. Belize citrus is outstanding and is exported to the US for addition to domestic product.

     The greatest number of Belizeans live in small villages throughout the country engaging in subsistence farming or small service businesses. There is very little manufacturing and a modest amount of retail sales of imported goods.

     Much more information about Belize can be found by following the links to the web sites identified on our "Links" page.

San Ignacio

San      Ignacio and Santa Elena lie on opposite sides of the Macal river just south of where its confluence with the Mopan river forms the Belize River, once the principal highway for the transportation of mahogany, logwood, and chicle to the coast for shipment to the US or the UK.

     The "twin towns" have a population of about 10,000 and have often been described in travel guides as having an ambiance like the frontier towns of the American west in the 1880’s. That description, perhaps a little romantic, does, in some ways, paint a fairly accurate picture of these two gregarious, friendly, and perhaps a bit raucous western outposts, once the center of the chicle trade. They are collectively referred to by the locals as "Cayo" from the name of the District in which they are located, and are the commercial center for the hundreds of remote villages scattered throughout the rain forest which still covers most of the area.

     Cayo is a very popular tourist destination, being near some of the most important Maya sites, in the heart of the forest, and having accommodations ranging from those for backpackers to some of the most comfortable first class resorts available. Cayo is also the home of the Belize Community Service Alliance.

Belize Community Service Alliance

     Several years ago, Dr. Jorge Garcia and some friends started the community radio station now known as Radio Ritmo. They believed that Cayo needed some better means of communication, and in particular, a better way to reach the more remote villages with public service programming. They saw the radio as the way in which educational, health, environmental, and news programs might be made available to people who had no other means to obtain such information. The new station soon became very popular with the Cayo audience and Dr. Garcia began to expand its reach and programming. Eventually the radio became a too great a responsibility for the Doctor and his wife Araceli, who, by that time were trying to provide this important public service as well as run the growing medical practice and its pharmacy. Both of the Garcia sons, Luis and Jorge had worked in the station and Luis finally took over most of its operation in 1994. Dr. Garcia continued to host some of the shows and Araceli Garcia continued to provide the business management.

     Luis, continuing the public service work of his parents, increased the station’s programming and began to add some of the social programs which are described in detail elsewhere in this site. He realized that many of the more remote villages were essentially without many of the social, educational, health, and other services needed to make the lives of the people more bearable, and that it was not possible for the government or the church or other organizations to provide them. So Luis took it upon himself to begin a one man campaign for the relief of these forgotten villages. Of course he enlisted the aid of his father to provide the medical services and his mother to provide the pharmacy and management services. And from time to time he would find other volunteers to carry part of the load. What was now called Radio Ritmo provided much of the funding from its own meager revenues.

     In 1998, Luis and Bruce Stratton, a lawyer from the US who lives part of the year in Cayo, began to talk about ways to make the programs sustainable, and in 1999 they created the Belizean NGO called the Belize Community Service Alliance, and began to look for contributions beyond Belize. Much of that effort originally took place in Springfield, Illinois where Bruce maintains an office, but now, through the use of the internet, our fundraising can reach a much larger audience.

     Luis and Bruce, and their families and friends, and the people of Belize City, Cayo, and Springfield have been very generous and have enabled the programs of the Alliance and the radio to grow and to assist more and more people. A more complete list of these kind and generous supporters can be found in this web site in the section called the "Sponsors" page.